Sunday, January 22, 2012 Thursday, December 1, 2011

Is there a good guide to MN Etsy shops? What are some MN Etsy shops you like?

Not stuff that’s dripping with Minnesota twee, just good stuff that I’d actually want to buy another person.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Supporting Local Businesses Means Supporting Your Local Internet

The terms “community” and “neighborhoods” can be kinda funny. Sometimes community-run media gives people jobs and/or training that can be used to enhance the local understand of how media is made.

And sometimes those terms are employed by outlets that are designed to profit from media trends like hyperlocalism. When the money from the community’s output doesn’t go back into the community, it provides little benefit to the actual community. (And if you want to volunteer, local organizations need your talents more than a for-profit based in New York.)

If Minneapolis and St. Paul didn’t already have outstanding community media resources and amazing local Tumblrs, I would have no problem with new companies trying to build that community spirit. But as it stands there are plenty of local places that provide paying jobs (or that are at least attempting it) to those who curate and write news about the Twin Cities; please support them by reading them, by linking them, by supporting their advertisers and sponsors. Here are some:

There are more, so please add to the list. As for one-stop Twin Cities Tumblrs, I’m sure another one of you can provide a list of those, if you don’t already know where to find them.

And then there’s also varied and sundry Patches, as well as several other non-locally based community-oriented sites, which I’m not always a huge supporter of, but at least they pay their writers and editors.

Also, not that the economics of liquor production are anything like the economics of media production (whole ‘nother can o’ worms!), but there is a very nice gin that comes out of Wisconsin called Death’s Door. There’s some free advertising.

Friday, March 4, 2011 Sunday, January 30, 2011 Wednesday, September 15, 2010 Monday, August 9, 2010 Monday, May 17, 2010
What I love about living in Minneapolis, and working in St. Paul, is that I, and most residents, could care less about NYC, Chicago, and SF (all places I have lived). It really is ironic that in the Twin Cities region the next “big city” is Chicago (350 miles away), which Amtrak only goes to once a day from St. Paul. Here in the upper Midwest we live in the shadow of nobody. No NYC to Philadelphia, no Chicago to Milwaukee, we just seem to exist up here all by ourselves with no clear reflection from somebody else’s shadow.

Why I moved to “fly over land”

(via movingtompls and freshmn)

Often I’m asked to articulate why I love it here and don’t feel like moving back east, and this is a reason that has always been on the tip of my tongue but I’ve never articulated it quite this way. When you grow up in a place that has very little positive identity other than that it’s near four major cities, the independence of the Twin Cities shines remarkably bright.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010